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CSI: Judaea

In ‘The Apostle Killer,’ Richard Beard takes on the world’s juiciest conundrum: the resurrection of Jesus.

Updated Oct. 28, 2016 2:42 p.m. ET

Richard Beard’s darkly mysterious new novel is nothing if not provocative. What would happen, it asks, if the Crucifixion took place now?

“The Apostle Killer” (Melville House, 331 pages, $25.99) opens immediately after the Crucifixion, in Roman-occupied Judaea. But this is a Judaea with surveillance cameras, laptops and forensic science. The Roman authorities are not happy about the disappearance of Jesus’s body.